


all but the brightest stars

by cynical_optimist, strangetowns



Series: not wisely, but too well [2]
Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: 5 + 1, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Blood, Consent Issues, Dysphoria, F/F, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 16:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6123211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you still believe in magic, Ursula?” Hero says.</p><p>It’s not an easy question. Hero would answer it honestly, so Ursula does, too.</p><p>“I don’t know,” she says.<br/>-<br/>Day 7 of Lovely Little Femslash Week - free day</p>
            </blockquote>





	all but the brightest stars

**Author's Note:**

> Five times Ursula is on her own, and one time she isn't.
> 
> This is the first of several "one lifetime with you" spinoffs we have planned. We have tried our best to ensure you don't need to have read that fic to enjoy this one, but here are some key points of the verse that will probably help make sense of this fic:  
> -Magic/magical creatures exist, but human attitudes toward it vary anywhere from outright rejection of their existence to wholehearted belief.  
> -This verse's equivalent to Hero's 16th birthday party involves accusations of Hero being a succubus.
> 
> We are sorry for how angsty this turned out. Really, we are. Warnings for: violence, blood, dysphoria, and consent issues. If there is anything else we have missed, please let us know.
> 
> [A companion playlist](http://8tracks.com/douchenuts/all-but-the-brightest-stars).

_“Until next time,” Ursula says. “And Balthazar?”_

_“Mhm?”_

_“Take care of yourself, all right?” Ursula’s eyes are serious, like she knows more than he’s told._

-one lifetime with you, chapter 6

  


_1._

There are legends about the wood behind Ursula's house.

They are all hearsay, of course, and cannot be proven, and her parents always say that something that can't be proven is something that doesn't exist, so she puts no stock in them. Well, she doesn't usually put any stock in them. There's a marked difference between taking pictures of the sunlight filtering through the leaves, of the smiles of her best friend beside her, and stumbling over roots with only her phone torch and the full moon to guide her.

 _It's for Hero_ , she reminds herself, and the thought warms her chest and cheeks.  Hero had asked her over, and had sounded _happy_ , like Ursula's presence would make her even happier, and that's been so rare recently. She can suffer through a few minutes of fear for Hero, surely, even if the wood between their houses does creak threateningly, almost like it's howling.

Ursula takes a step, and then another, and she knows she doesn't have that many to go until Hero's house, and Hero's family, and the soft, comfortable warmth they exude. Maybe Hero will be willing to help with their math assignment, which is three parts too long and mostly unexplained by the teacher. Maybe Hero will smile at her, and hug her, and that not-so-confusing warmth will start spreading through her veins, every bit as vital as the blood that flows there, too.

Her phone buzzes. Ten percent battery. There are chargers at Hero's house, though, so it's alright, even if it might mean she'll have to face the last few minutes of her walk only guided by the moon. At least it's full, tonight, and bright.  She doesn't know what she'd do if it were a new moon.

The trees creak again, high pitched and whining, louder than before. There's no wind though, so that doesn't make any sense. Why would the trees be creaking if there's no wind to push them?

"Crap," she hisses, as she  stumbles over a root. She glances at her phone; seven percent. Her heart quivers.

This is irrational; she's been here before, many times. Some of her best memories are in this wood. That had been in daylight though, and usually with Hero. Ursula wishes suddenly, desperately, that Hero was with her now.

Something snaps behind her.

"Hello?" she calls, after she catches her breath again. "Is someone there?"

Her throat closes up painfully.

"H-hello?" A growl ripples through the still night, fearsome and terrible.

"Please leave me alone," she says, and the words shake as they come out, but they are audible and firm, and she can be proud of that. "I'm just going to my friend's house, she'll know something's wrong if I'm not there in the next few minutes." The trees creak again, but it's still not windy, how is that possible? It's her imagination. It has to be her imagination.

There is a blur of something dark that flies past the edge of her vision, too fast for her to catch. Her phone buzzes again-- a text from Hero-- and dies.

Ursula's heart kicks against her ribs painfully. She stumbles across the roots and fallen branches a little faster, a little more urgently.

"Please," she begs, the word barely a whisper, forced past the burn in her throat. Ursula trips, falls onto her hands and knees. She might have scraped them; she'll have to check later, when she's safe and warm in Hero's house. At least her glasses didn't fall off.

When Ursula looks up, read to push herself to her feet again, she is not alone.

She's definitely hallucinating. She did bio last year, and they studied the flora and fauna of their country, and _there are no wolves in New Zealand_. There never have been wolves in New Zealand, but that doesn't make any sense, because there is a wolf standing in front of her, intelligent eyes boring into her own, and it looks like it might be smiling.

"Oh," she breathes, and it growls.

Ursula screams.

Suddenly the wolf is on her, bowling her over, and there is a sharp stab of pain through her left arm, raw and pulsing, and she pushes the mass of fur away, and then the wolf is gone.

"Oh," she breathes again, and wonders if it had been a hallucination, but hallucinations do not bite, and there is something dripping from her throbbing arm to the ground, something that is not water, because it is not raining. But then it hadn't been windy, either, and the trees had still been creaking like howls, unless it wasn't trees at all, unless it was--

Ursula pushes herself to her feet, clutching her arm close to her chest. Her dress is ruined, she realises, torn at the sleeve and covered in red. That shouldn't be her concern, though, not when she's been bitten by an animal that shouldn't even be in her country, and her phone is somewhere among the roots and branches and leaves she'd fallen into.

Ursula runs.

It's a miracle she doesn't fall, a miracle or something else entirely, but she manages to stand firmly, to keep her steps sure-footed and precise, which is something she'd never managed to do on a good day, but today is far from a good day. The trees creak again behind her, or maybe the wolf howls, but neither explanation makes sense-- nothing makes sense, how could anything make sense when blood that's supposed to be going to her brain is dripping out her appendages? She did bio, she knows what will happen if she leaves it untreated, if the wolf had managed to slice open something important.

That thought makes Ursula feel iller than the blood loss has, and she wishes again that she were with Hero, that Hero could hug her and tell her that it will be alright, because Hero always knows what to say, because she can trust Hero.

If Hero always tells the truth, though, would she really tell Ursula that everything will be okay?

Ursula's vision blurs, and she stumbles, but she's wearing her glasses. Her vision doesn't usually blur when she's wearing her glasses, unless she's stayed up too late working on assignments or trying not to cry. She's tired, Ursula decides, so tired, like when it’s three a.m. and her maths review still doesn't make any sense.

The blurred darkness morphs into blurred light, and Ursula is standing in Hero's backyard. She's safe.

She stumbles to the back door, and knocks, even though she's been friends with Hero since they were in Kindergarten and Mrs and Mrs Duke always tell her that she's part of the family, because she really doesn't want to drip blood on their carpet. Hero accidentally cut herself on a jagged piece of metal, once, and the stain in the living room is faded but still there.

Antonia, Hero's mumma, opens the door in her pajamas, soft, teasing smile on her face. "Ursula, you know you-- oh my god."

"I don't--" Ursula manages, then swallows. "I think I was bitten," she says, and her vision blurs to black.

When she wakes, Hero is hovering over her, frantic and tearful.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasps. “Oh my gosh, you’re awake. Mum! Mumma!”

The burning has settled into a dull throb, hot and cold all at once. She thinks she might be shaking.

“I’m fine,” Ursula insists. She forces herself upright. Her vision is blurry-- where are her glasses?

“Here,” Hero says, pressing them into her hands. Ursula puts them on and blinks; Hero’s mothers are standing behind her, with identical expressions of concern.

“We’re going to take you to the hospital,” Imogen says, reaching for her.

Something in Ursula pushes back and curls in on itself and snarls and bites and draws away. She flinches away from the hand. “No,” she says. “I’m fine. I just need to go home.” She stands, and she can feel her knees shaking, and she can see the fear in Hero’s eyes, and she knows she caused it.

“Ursula--” Hero starts.

“I’ll see you at school.” Ursula turns to Hero’s mums. “I’m sorry for disrupting your evening.”

“I really think you should go to the hospital,” Antonia says. Ursula’s blood is on her shirt.

“I’ll get my parents to take me.” She needs to get out of there-- needs to not be inside, not be around people, not  be around Hero. She needs  to be alone, and she doesn’t understand why.

Ursula is half a step out the door by then, but she pauses. “Hero--” she begins, and wants to ask, _tell me everything will be okay?_

“Yes?”

 _Hero doesn’t lie to me_ , she thinks, and she couldn’t handle the truth from Hero’s mouth. “Nevermind.”

Ursula turns and walks, knees  shaking, into the bright night.

-

_2._

About two days after Ursula was bitten by the wolf that shouldn’t exist, she starts to feel ill.

Ill is the wrong word for it, probably. Whatever you call it when your body acts up in ways it shouldn’t that aren’t caused by disease.

It can’t be disease. She doesn’t have a cough or a fever or chills or the various other symptoms you’re supposed to have when you get sick. What she has is far stranger than that.

What she has is this –

  * The light is so bright inside she finds herself squinting her eyes and turning away from it. Even the backlight of her phone screen on the dimmest setting is too much, and she’s taken to just switching it off in the morning. This fact alone would make school a living hell, if it weren’t already.
  * When she’s walking with Hero to class, she hears a shout – “Beatrice!” It’s loud enough to make her flinch, and for Hero to look at her strangely. She looks around for the source of the sound and doesn’t find it for a long, confusing moment. Then she looks across the football field, and she can just barely make out Beatrice and Ben’s figures at the far end. She can’t hear anything else they say.
  * Her favorite shirt, well-worn and soft from years of use and washings, is unbearably scratchy when she tries to put it on in the morning. The clothing that feels least irritating to her is the dress she wore that horrible night, and she cuts off the sleeves and hopes no one will notice. It feels like burlap rubbing against her skin, but at least she can bear it enough not to tear it off with her bare hands.
  * She makes her own lunch, a slice of ham and swiss cheese on rye. She forgets to spread mayonnaise or any sort of condiment on the bread, and the sandwich still has too strong of a flavor for her to finish. She tosses it into the garbage, her stomach roiling like the ocean.
  * She can smell the sweat off of her lab partner in biology. She can smell things that belong in the garbage bin - rotting banana peels and sticky food wrappers - from halfway across the room. She can smell fresh baked cookies and daisies on Hero at lunch, though she has neither with her. The smells she couldn’t smell before are sharp in her nostrils, and the way they mix together makes her nauseous.



None of it makes any sense, and Ursula spends half the day wondering if she’s gone mad. But she can still make decisions, and think for herself, and hold proper conversations, so she dismisses the thought and wills the end of the day to come as fast as it can.

By the time Ursula gets home, she is exhausted to the bone. She can feel a headache coming on, dull but hard to ignore. With profuse apologies, she skips dinner and goes to bed early, curling under the covers and hoping the migraine will go away with proper rest. Lord knows she hasn’t had enough of that these days.

She wakes at four in the morning with a migraine that feels like the world is splitting apart.

Ursula stumbles out of bed and into the bathroom, hands fumbling for the faucet. Fingers shaking, she splashes cold water on her face. It doesn’t help.

On some sort of twisted excuse for a whim, she looks at herself in the mirror, trembling lips and too-pale face. The pain in her skull is jagged, shards of glass stuck in her brain and twisted cruelly. It throbs behind her eyes, between her temples, and it hurts so badly she barely remembers her own name.

“What’s happening to me?” she lets herself whisper, a little out of desperation. Two seconds pass. “It’s only a migraine,” she says, louder. Then she takes an ibuprofen and goes back to bed.

The next morning, she opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling. The headache is still there, and she would laugh at the thought that what she felt last night was pain compared to this if laughing or talking or moving her jaw at all didn’t make her head feel like it was going to burst apart. She gets out of bed, and though the light makes her want to squeeze her eyes shut she squares her shoulders and makes her way out of her room, holding onto walls and pretending her knees don’t shake. She goes to her parents and says, “I think I need to go to the hospital.”

Her mother glances up from her morning reading, the look she presses on Ursula for half a second patently unimpressed. “Are you bleeding from anywhere significant?”

Ursula swallows hard. “No, but – “

“Are you going into anaphylactic shock?”

“No – “

“Stroke?”

“I – “

“Hospital bills are expensive, Ursula,” her mother says. This time, she doesn’t look up. “If you just have some sort of cold, I can drop you off at the clinic.”

“I think I have rabies,” Ursula blurts out, and even before she says it she knows how stupid she sounds.

Her mother looks up. It’s the kind of look that makes Ursula’s heart turn to stone.

“New Zealand has never, in its entire history, had a single case of rabies,” she says, slowly.

“I know, but – “ And it’s a measure of how desperate she is, her head hurts so bad she can imagine her neurons slowly dying away, that she holds out her neatly bandaged arm. “I was bitten.”

“By?” Her mother asks incredulously.

Ursula closes her eyes. She knows she can’t lie to her mother, has never been able to, just as she knows her mother won’t believe her.

“I think it was a wolf,” she says. For all the misery that suddenly wells up in her throat, none of it bleeds into her voice; frankly, she’s surprised she’s capable of such a thing.

“Don’t waste my time, Ursula,” her mother snaps, just as Ursula knew she would. “If this is some sort of joke – “

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” Ursula says quickly, automatically. “I just have – this awful headache – “

“Take an ibuprofen and have a lie-down,” her mother cuts in, unsmiling. “And please, don’t bother me again unless it’s something really important. I have work to do this morning, you know. Oh, and when your headache goes away, you need to start working on your schoolwork. I trust I won’t have to tell you twice.”

“No,” Ursula answers. The pain pulses between the walls of her skull.

Thankfully, it’s Saturday, and that more often than not means Hero has invited her over for dinner. Sure enough, her phone vibrates around four, like clockwork.

**From: Hero Duke  
** _The mums want you over for dinner tonight :)_

**To: Hero Duke  
** _Not you?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Of course I do!!! :(((_

**To: Hero Duke  
** _Teasing. Of course you do <3_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Leo said he’ll pick you up. You know, after last time…_

**To: Hero Duke  
** _It’s okay. I can walk._

**From: Hero Duke  
** _That’s nice, but I don’t think we’re giving you a choice, here._

**To: Hero Duke  
** _I think I’m the only person in the whole world who knows how diabolical you are._

**From: Hero Duke  
** _< 33_

She goes over to Hero’s house so often even her mother can’t really stop her from going, even if she really wanted to, so she asks permission and, as expected, actually gets it. Half an hour later, as promised, Leo picks her up.

“Hey, Ursula,” Leo says, brotherly smile at the ready. “Hero told me you haven’t been feeling well these past few days, especially after – well, you know. I hope you’re doing better.”

“Yeah, I am,” Ursula says. She doesn’t mention the bottle of ibuprofen she has carefully tucked away in her bag, or the fact that she has taken more pills in the last hour than is probably – definitely, if she’s going to be honest with herself – healthy. At the least, though, she is able to walk and speak and give off the impression that she is a functioning human being, which is really all she needs tonight.

They sit in not-quite-uncomfortable silence for a moment, then Leo fiddles around with the radio a bit and says, “You know, I’ve been listening to conspiracy radio lately.”

Ursula feels her eyebrows raise. “Really?”

“Just for the kicks and giggles, mind,” Leo says with a laugh. “I don’t actually believe in that bullcrap anyway, not anymore. Especially after – well. You know.”

“Yeah.” She knows.

Leo clears his throat. “Anyway, I just thought you might find this interesting – you find this kind of stuff interesting, don’t you? – but this one particular station does a weekly spotlight on a different creature. It’s crazy, this guy is super into them, just rambles on and on for the full time and sometimes you can tell they’ve cut him off. Constantine, I think his name is? Costa, maybe? Anyway, the guy is a bit unhinged, I think, but covers his bases ridiculously well. Like, for example, the other day he was doing a piece on werewolves.”

The word, as preposterous as it is, pulls the image of glowing eyes and sharp teeth from the dark recesses of Ursula’s memory. The wolf. Because, as much as she wants to be able to convince herself that it was just some stray dog, as much as she wants to believe she hallucinated the whole thing in some sort of fever dream, she’s read the books and she’s seen the pictures. Dogs in New Zealand don’t look like that. And the meanest dogs she’s encountered never had eyes that looked so human.

Involuntarily, she shudders.

“You all right there?” Leo says, concerned.

“I’m fine.” Ursula shakes her head, as if that might dislodge the pain in her skull. “You were saying?”

“Yeah, so I was actually kind of surprised by how thorough he was. The biology, the history, the myths, everything. He even had a lady call in talking and basically sobbing about how she saw a wolf the other night, when the moon was full.”

Ursula’s heart, miracle of all miracles, beats on steadily.

“Bollocks, of course,” Leo continues. “There are no wolves in New Zealand, it’s so obvious I feel kind of stupid even saying it. But interesting, right?”

“Yes,” Ursula says, faintly. “Interesting.”

Maybe she ought to give this Costa guy a call, herself.

Still, when they pull into the driveway she makes herself put it all out of her head. The whole business is, as Leo puts it, bollocks. She has more important things to focus on at the present moment.

As soon as she steps into the Dukes’ house, though, Hero comes up and envelopes her in a warm hug, and everything she’s been worrying about – her homework, her headache, her stupid injury – kind of just fades away, a little.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” Hero says into Ursula’s shoulder.

“You saw me yesterday at school,” Ursula says with a laugh, pulling away.

“Yes, well.” Hero smiles brightly. “I can never get enough of you, Ursula.”

Ursula smiles back. “Or me you.”

Hero knocks her shoulder into Ursula’s and says nothing.

Dinner at the Dukes’ is, as usual, lovely. Both her mums are present, and though they’re not done with the food they let Hero and Ursula sit at the counter and talk to them. The kitchen is warm and smells delicious; it’s everything that Ursula’s kitchen never is.

“Beatrice not in tonight, then?” Ursula says.

“Yeah, she’s been spending a lot of time with Ben.” Hero laughs. “I mean, for obvious reasons.”

“Right,” Ursula says, nodding sagely.

“They deserve the time together, before uni starts.” Hero tilts her head thoughtfully. “Anyway, I don’t mind quiet evenings, sometimes. They’ve been – I’ve appreciated them more, lately.”

Ursula pretends the pain she feels, when she hears those words, is solely because of her throbbing head.

“Not quiet tonight,” she says.

“No,” Hero agrees, glancing at her and smiling. “Not tonight.”

When the Dukes eat dinner, it’s together around the dinner table. There’s conversation. Imogen and Antonia ask Hero and Leo and whoever else happens to be there about their days, and they listen well. Everyone listens well. Tonight is no different. She feels, oddly enough, content. She feels safe. Ursula compares this – Hero rambling about her music lessons and having no cause to stop; Antonia telling a charming story about something that happened at work, and she always manages to make work sound interesting – to the silence and the probing questions at her own dinner table the few nights they do eat together. After maybe five seconds, she decides comparing is something that doesn’t need to be done anymore.

After, Hero and Ursula retreat to the living room to watch a movie. Ursula puts on Pacific Rim because she knows without either of them having to say a thing that they’re both tired of romance, and though the couch is big enough for them to sit on opposite ends they don’t bother. Hero curls into Ursula’s side, and Ursula doesn’t think about how easy it is to let her fingers thread through Hero’s hair, to breathe and to just be.

After the movie’s over, Hero doesn’t move, just shifts a little so her head lands in Ursula’s lap.

“Do you still believe in magic, Ursula?” Hero says.

It’s not an easy question. Hero would answer it honestly, so Ursula does, too.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“I still think it’s real,” Hero says, closing her eyes. Ursula lets her fingers brush lightly over Hero’s forehead, and Hero doesn’t move, just smiles. “Even after everything. He can’t take that away from me, can he?”

“No,” Ursula says, throat tightening. No one can ever take Hero’s fierce and bottomless love – for anyone, for anything, for beliefs and ideologies and wonders no one really understands but that no one really has to – from her. That much is certain, even if nothing else right now is.

“Does your head still ache, Ursula?” Hero says, softly.

Ursula wonders what Hero would say or do if she admitted it hasn’t really gone away at all, since it first started. She wonders what Hero would say or do if she found out about all the pills she’s taken in the last few hours. If Ursula dared to admit the ache in her head was nothing next to the pain in her heart, for Hero and for everything else.

“I’m fine,” Ursula says lightly. “Don’t worry about me.”

It takes a solid week for her headache to fade away.

-

_3._

One month from the day she is bitten, moon high and bright in the sky, Ursula finds a name for her condition. She picks the meaning out of the scraps of cloth and branches around her, the mauled trees—when did she move to the forest? She only remembers going home, head splitting with pain, skin prickling, not even able to text Hero, before passing out on her bed.

 _Werewolf_ , she thinks, remembering the full moon high in the sky, a strange, feral tugging in her gut.

 _Monster_ , she thinks, looking at the mess around her.

 _Evil_ , she thinks, remembering through a hazy cloud the _hunger_ , the knowledge of what she would do to anyone if she were to happen upon them, even her own parents. Even Hero.

She goes home, every part of her aching, and sleeps for a day and a night. She’s lucky it’s a weekend, and she wakes up midway through Sunday hardly feeling better. Her phone buzzes, and she realises she has fifteen texts and three missed calls from Hero.

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Hey, are you okay?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _You weren’t looking great at school today :P_

**Missed call: Hero Duke**

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Urs?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Are you there?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Please tell me you’re okay_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _I’m really worried_

**Missed call: Hero Duke**

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Please answer me_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Urs??????_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Ursula please talk to me_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _What’s wrong?_

**Missed call: Hero Duke**

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Ursula_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Did I say something?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Are you mad?_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _It’s been two days_

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Just please let me know you’re alright_

**To: Hero Duke  
** _I need to talk to you about something important. Can I come over?_

Ursula only has to wait a few moments for the reply.

**From: Hero Duke  
** _Of course!!!_

Forcing herself to her feet, she changes into clothes that scratch and prickle at her sore skin, and heads over to Hero’s house. She doesn’t think about the walk, doesn’t think about where she’s going, but her feet lead her there without issue, which is strange, because she’s gotten lost before, and every tree looks the same, and this must be another strange side effect of being a _werewolf, oh gosh she’s a werewolf._

Ursula knocks on the door, forces a reassuring smile for the worried look Bea gives her when she answers—she must look a sight, dressed in a crumpled outfit that probably doesn’t even match, absolutely exhausted, maybe even injured. She wouldn’t know, through the haze of pain that covers her head to toe.

“Are you okay?” Beatrice asks, concerned and frightened and angry, and Ursula can smell her fear, which is something she hadn’t been able to do before. She can hear her heart beating in her chest, hear Hero strumming gently at her ukulele upstairs, hear the creak of the washing machine on the other side of the house.

“Fine,” she answers. “Thank you for asking. I’m just here to see Hero.”

Beatrice frowns but motions up the stairs. “She’s in her room practicing music.”

Ursula knows this. “Thanks.”

She walks up the stairs and it feels like her limbs are creaking with them, joints and muscles aching and burning and shifting, like they don’t quite fit under her skin. When she gets to Hero’s room, Ursula stops for a moment, half to give herself a reprieve and half out of awe.

Hero is sitting on her bed, light streaming in through the window, smiling down at the instrument cradled in her arms. She strums a chord and struggles through another, and her smile grows when she gets it right. She looks ethereal.

Ursula wonders, with a fury so intense she might shake from the force of it, how anyone could have thought her to be a creature so dark and twisted as a _succubus_. If anything, she would be a faery, one of the seelie, light and good despite and through her faults, even though Costa’s radio show had said that they’d left years ago.

Ursula remembers, suddenly, the darkness in her, the monster that had taken over her body. She shouldn’t be here, around Hero, who is nothing but light and love and all that is good in the world.

Hero looks up, and her smiles fades. “Urs…” she says, and sets down the instrument. ‘What’s wrong? You didn’t answer any of my texts.”

“I’m sorry,” Ursula replies, and twists the hem of her sleeve.

“Did…” Hero hesitates. “Did I do something wrong?” Ursula notices, suddenly, the bags under her eyes, the sorrow set deep in every crevice of her face.

“No,” she gasps. “No, not at all!”

“Oh,” Hero sighs, relieved. “Then what… here, come sit down, you look terrible.”

“Rude,” Ursula mutters, teasing, and obeys. She settles onto Hero’s bed and closes her eyes, letting herself calm, just a little, in the scent of flowers and cooking and peace, if peace even has a scent.

Hero places her hand on Ursula’s cheek, and her touch is soft and warm. Ursula sighs.

 _Werewolf_ , she thinks again, and draws away. Hero flinches back.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, desperation clouding her tone.

“I,” says Ursula, and stops.

“Urs,” Hero whispers, and there is pain and concern and something else in her voice, and her heart is beating so loudly, and Beatrice is downstairs talking to Ben on the phone, and Leo has forgotten to put his laundry out again, and—“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Ursula nods, and the movement tugs at her painfully and rocks her sensitive brain. She should have taken more ibuprofen. “You know,” she starts, “how you told me that you wouldn’t let what they did take magic from you.”

“Yes?”

She could ask, _do you believe in werewolves_ or _what do you think of werewolves_ or _would you hate me if I were a monster like the one they accused you of being_. She could just not say anything at all.

“I think I’m a werewolf,” she says, in a rush, because otherwise she might never say it. Her breath dies in her throat, and she looks down at her hands—hands that are claws, hands that tear and maul and destroy _what if she hurt someone oh gosh no_.

“Oh,” says Hero. “Oh, come here.” She reaches out to hug Ursula, and Ursula draws away, because _everything hurts_ and Hero makes it better and it really shouldn’t be better, not for her.

“I can’t,” Ursula gasps. “I’m sorry, it’s not—I just—” She can’t explain it, the hunger of that night, the destruction. She can’t put it into words.

Hero tucks her arms around herself. “Okay,” she says, and her eyelashes flutter, drops of salt tears catching on them. “Okay, I won’t. I love you, Ursula, okay? And the werewolf thing—that doesn’t change that. Was—was it the bite, that night?”

Ursula nods, and wants to gather Hero into her arms, wipe the tears away and hold her close. “I turned, Friday night. It was just—I thought you should know.”

Hero nods, too, and swallows. “I’m sorry,” she says, and Ursula meets her eyes incredulously. “That I wasn’t there for you, this transformation. I’ll be there at the next one.”

“No!” Ursula snaps, and curls in on herself further when Hero flinches away, the ghosts of past wrongs flickering over her face. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

 _Monster_ , she thinks, at the moment of fear in Hero’s eyes.

“No, I’m fine,” Hero says. “Ursula, I can be there. I can help.”

Ursula shakes her head. “I’ll kill you,” she replies. “I can’t control it. I’ll kill you, and I won’t even realise until I wake up and you’re…”

She leaves the last word hanging in the room like a poison.

Hero’s breath shudders. “Damnit,” she says, then again, with fire, “ _damnit_ . I wish—there’s a part of me that wishes I _was_ what they said I am. Then—at least then, I could _do_ something.” She is trembling, Ursula realises, with fury and helplessness and fear. Fury is such a rare emotion on Hero, and Ursula hates being the one to cause it.

“You’re enough as you are,” Ursula says, and means it, and wishes she could say more, like _I love you in ways that aren’t platonic_ and _you’re making this better by staying okay_ and _please just tell me it will be alright I need it to be alright_.

Hero’s face contracts. She holds herself tighter, and Ursula has been her best friend since kindergarten; she knows when Hero needs a hug, more than anything. But Hero is so _good_ , and Ursula isn’t, so she forces herself to her feet, the movement pulling at her ill-fitting muscles painfully.

She leaves, and she can hear Hero sobbing upstairs until she’s almost home.

Before the next transformation—one month later, though she’d been feeling it coming for a week—Hero sends her a message. She’s sitting in the woods, waiting, and she’d considered bringing chains but she doesn’t know where to get them, and they probably wouldn’t help, anyway.

**From: Hero Duke  
** _I’m sorry I can’t be there for you. Please be safe_ .

The pain is coming in earnest by then, in waves, tearing and pulsing and twisting and growing and shrinking, and Ursula wonders how she’s going to survive school the next day, but the thought of Hero hurting over her somehow overshadows it all.

 _Evil_ , she thinks, and it is her last coherent thought before the pain forces everything from her mind.

-

_4._

A few weeks before the end of term, Hero and Beatrice organize some type of party. It’s not exactly a graduation party, but it’s not exactly a normal get-together, either, because though apologies have long been made the wounds are still raw, and they all feel it.

Ursula almost doesn’t go at all. Hero knows, of course, but no one else realizes that this party takes place two days after Ursula’s last transformation. She wakes up the morning of, eyelids like sandpaper and pulsing heaviness weighing down her every thought, and she still doesn’t quite know how to recover from it. She doesn’t know if she ever will.

Still, the very fact that no one else knows means she has to go. More than that, she has to go for Hero. And, anyway, the headache isn’t so bad this time.

Ursula gets to Hero’s house right on the hour, dress scratching against her skin and heat behind her eyes. She leaves her camera at home.

Hero opens the door with a soft smile and pulls her into an embrace. “I’m glad you came,” she whispers into Ursula’s ear, and doesn’t let go for a long, sweet moment.

Then Beatrice comes up behind them – “Hero, what music should we play?” – and Hero pulls away, her hand lingering at Ursula’s shoulder.

“You’re the only one who’s here yet,” Hero says as they make their way into the house.

“I don’t believe in the fashionably late,” Ursula says. “I just believe in being fashionable.”

“I do quite like your dress,” Hero says, laughing. “It looks very nice on you.”

 _You look very nice all the time_ , Ursula doesn’t say. “Everything looks very nice on me.”

“Can’t argue with that, I suppose.” Hero pulls Ursula down onto the couch. “Where’s your camera?”

Ursula shrugs. “Didn’t think I needed it tonight.”

“Oh.” Hero looks down at her lap. “I think I understand.”

Of course she does.

“How’ve you been these last few days?” Hero says softly, glancing at her from the corner of her eye.

 _Like I’ve been run over by a bus_ , Ursula doesn’t say. _Like I should stay in bed forever._

“Okay.”

“That’s good.” Carefully, Hero places her hand over Ursula’s. “That means you’re getting more used to the whole process.”

Ursula doesn’t say that the whole process involves every cell of her body mutating violently into something completely foreign, something she can never know, and when your whole body is ripping itself apart it’s the kind of pain that always lingers somewhere deep beneath her skin, like a shadow or disturbing old memory she hasn’t quite forgotten. She doesn’t say that the whole process means losing her mind, and her heart, and herself. She doesn’t say that the whole process is tearing her apart, and that she doesn’t know how to make it stop.

“I think so, too,” she says instead.

Hero tightens her fingers around Ursula’s and looks her in the eyes. Try as she might Ursula cannot make herself look away. There is something in that gaze that holds her, that will not let go.

“If anything happens,” Hero says, “ _tell me_.” And the strength in her words – even after everything, Hero is still the strongest person Ursula has ever known, and that at least will never change – is impossible to ignore.

Throat tight, Ursula nods.

The doorbell rings again, then. Hero casts Ursula one last glance, and moves away.

It doesn’t take very long after that for everyone to come flooding in. Ben and Pedro and Meg are all there. Claudio is somewhere in a corner Ursula doesn’t want to find. Georgia and Hugh are there, too, and though the noisy chatter they surround her with does nothing to help her headache or her nerves she does not regret talking to them. Still she keeps to the peripheral of the gathering, silently hoping she can bear the company for just a little while longer.

One hour into the party, Ursula realizes that maybe coming was a bad idea, after all.

It’s the noise, mostly. The lights are fine, if a little bright, but the _noise_. The music and the talking and the laughter, a blur that fills her head with static. That is what makes her still and silent. The smells are what make her nauseous.

There are _so many_. The feelings – fear, joy, anxiety – are the strongest. She can hardly tell them apart from her own.

Balthazar comes to her, at some point. There are others that come talk to her, but his approach is the one she remembers the most because he smells – different.

Not human, but something else. Something else she can’t know. The thought sends her head spinning.

“Hello, Balthazar,” she greets.

“You don’t have your camera,” he says, looking at her pointedly.

Everyone’s been commenting on it tonight, and maybe it’s true that she always has her camera. Maybe it’s true that her camera is a part of herself, like Balthazar’s guitars are a part of him. And maybe it’s true that cameras have done more damage than any of them bargained for this year, and maybe she’s so sick of people hurting that it aches.

Ursula smiles, gently, and lets her gaze wander toward Hero. There is no sense, not anymore, in hiding her reasons.

“I see,” he says. What he doesn’t say is, _I know, because I have someone like that too._ She knows, too. She doesn’t need to smell it on him to know.

“How crazy has this year been, Balthazar?” she says, on an impulse. He won’t know everything that she means, of course, but he knows enough.

He laughs softly to himself. “You know, some part of me is kind of glad it’s almost over with.”

“Right.” She glances down at her hands. “It’s not over yet, though. A lot can still happen in a few weeks. In a night, even.”

“Yeah,” he says carefully, and she does not miss the direction he glances.

They part ways shortly after that. The conversation didn’t help her head in the slightest. She can’t ignore his smell, different and inhuman – but it’s not a difference she can really pinpoint, it’s sharper and colder but that doesn’t make sense because Balthazar isn’t sharp or cold at all – and incomprehensible. She doesn’t understand, because she barely understands herself, or what’s happening to her – how can she understand this?

Whatever it is, it can’t be easy for him. After all, this is by far the hardest thing she has had to deal with.

Two hours into the party, everything becomes too much, and Ursula can’t stop her hands from shaking.

Ursula makes her way to Hero and touches her on the arm. “I need to go home.”

Hero turns to her with a frown. “Already? But – “

“I’m not feeling well,” Ursula says, her mouth dry, her thoughts whirling around her head chaotically.

She can smell the daisies and the cookies on Hero. Even that is enough to make her sick to her stomach.

“Let me walk you home,” Hero says, taking hold of her wrist. “I just need to get my jacket – “

“No.” As gently as she can – she doesn’t trust herself anymore – she pushes her hand off. Hero lets her arm drop to her side, and Ursula doesn’t think about how she flinched, or the flash of something in her eyes Ursula doesn’t want to identify carefully subdued and tamed to mild concern. She just knows she can’t let Hero come with her.

“Ursula,” Hero says. It’s the only thing she says.

“I’ll be fine on my own,” Ursula answers.

She turns away, after that. She can’t ask Hero to help her. Hero doesn’t need anything else to worry about, not right now. Hero deserves better. Hero deserves everything Ursula can’t give her.

-

_5._

Sometimes, Ursula dreams of her transformations.

It’s flashes—senses, more like. The sound of howls—her howls, alone and unanswered, even the wolf that turned her mysteriously gone. Soft dirt beneath her paws. The moon, bright and full, to her, its light falling softly through the canopy of leaves. Running.

A few nights after Hero’s party, she dreams of chasing and wakes with the taste of blood in her mouth.

An animal, she tells herself, heart pounding, stomach roiling, the moment she opens her eyes.

She thinks, if she closes them, she might see it again. Instead, she forces herself out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom, fumbling for her toothbrush with fingers that shake like branches in the wind.

She brushes her teeth, using too much toothpaste, so much that the part of her that is still a wolf, that is _always_ a wolf, recoils. Ursula spits, rinses, and the taste isn’t gone.

An animal.

She brushes her teeth again, finds the mouthwash.

An animal.

The taste isn’t gone and it won’t leave, and she wonders if that’s what was stuck under her fingernails for two days after the transformation, if it had lingered on her hands and dried into a brown that she couldn’t tell from dirt when it was swirling down the drain, if she had been walking around covered in blood that didn’t belong to her since her transformation.

An animal.

Chasing, branches and dirt and leaves under her paws, claws out—

An animal.

\--she could smell its fear, hear its heart pounding unsteadily—

An animal. It had to have been an animal.

Ursula closes her eyes and presses them with the heels of her hands, trying to push the memories away. It only makes her head pound. She grips the edge of the sink, porcelain digging into her palms.

Her stomach growls, and she flinches, because she can remember hunger, and she might have killed someo—might have killed an animal.

Or maybe it was just a dream—a nightmare. It would make sense. Ursula probably has a whole wealth of trauma-related issues from the past few months that she _really_ should see someone about, but who would believe her and not revile her? She has Hero, anyway.

Grabbing her glasses off her nightstand, she heads to the kitchen, still in her pyjamas. Maybe coffee will help.

“Morning,” her father greets, looking up from his tablet.

“Good morning.” It tastes like a lie.

Just a dream. Just an animal.

She pours herself a coffee and puts some toast on, and stares at the toaster until her father speaks again.

“You aren’t planning on going anywhere today, are you?”

Ursula looks up. “No, not really. Why?”

Her father shrugs. “Someone was attacked a few nights ago, it’s in the news. I think it was around this area.” He doesn’t look up from his tablet, doesn’t see Ursula lose her grip on her coffee cup and catch it unnaturally fast. Some spills on her hand, and she hisses in pain.

Not just an animal, then.

“An animal attack?” she asks, voice miraculously steady.

“Article doesn’t say.”

“Huh,” she says, as if her stomach isn’t roiling and churning, heart pounding, whatever she had resembling coping shattering around her. “I’m just going to go upstairs.”

She makes it into the room before her legs completely turn to jelly, and she collapses right where she is, just sitting on the ground in the entry to her room.

A human.

Maybe.

Unless it was a human that was attacked by another human, or some sort of wild dog, or any one of the myriad of magical animals that could exist if werewolves and whatever Balthazar is do. It might not have been her.

Chasing. The smell of fear. Eyes, bright and wide and frightened, a mouth open in a wordless cry of terror.

A human.

“Oh gosh,” says Ursula. “Oh gosh. Oh—“

She should check the news, check to see if the times match up. Just in case. It could be her imagination acting up. It could be—anything. Anything but _attacking a human oh gosh she bit them what if she turned them what if—_

Ursula takes a deep breath, lets it out like she’d watched Hero do so many times in the aftermath of the party. She takes another.

Five breaths later, she manages to stand, and her knees still shake, but her feet are planted firmly in the ground. Ursula grabs her phone, and sits on her bed, because her knees are starting to give out again, because _she might have killed someone._

She unlocks it, and freezes, finger hovering over the browser app until the screen goes dark.

Is it better to know, or to wonder forever?

Ursula wonders, briefly, if this is how the wolf that turned her felt, when she was bitten. Maybe that’s why they left. Maybe that’s why she should.

Does it even matter whether she turned someone? Does it matter whether the incident is her imagination or the truth? She is capable of it. She could turn someone, or kill them, and she doesn’t know which is worse.

She could kill Hero. That would be worse.

Leaving is very suddenly a more attractive option than anything else. She has money saved, from photography prizes and short film contests. It’s enough to buy an aeroplane ticket, enough to get herself set up far away from humanity, surely.

 _If anything happens,_ Hero had said _, tell me_.

Ursula unlocks her phone and calls her.

“Hey, Urs,” Hero answers. “What’s up? I’ve just been baking; you can come over for some cookies later, if you like?”

Ursula breathes. “I can’t stay here,” she says.

“Oh, no.” Ursula can her Hero moving around. “At your house? Do you want to come over? I—”

“No. Here. Hero, I…” she hesitates. Another breath. She should keep breathing, keep her head clear. “I think I hurt someone.”

Something drops over the line. “ _What_?”

“I keep on-- remembering. And someone was hurt; it’s in the news. I might have _bitten_ someone.”

“Oh gosh,” Hero gasps. “What do you need? I can--”

“I need to find somewhere away from people,” she says. “I need to leave.”

“But you…” Hero pauses, and it sounds like she might be crying, or near to it. “You _can’t_.”

Ursula can feel her own tears burning in her throat. She squeezes her eyes shut. “I need to,” she says. “I might hurt someone. I might hurt…”

 _You_ , she doesn’t say. The thought is so horrifying, so _wrong_ , and to put it to words would make it a possiblity.

“Come over,” Hero says, voice tight. “Come over, and we’ll talk, and we’ll figure it out.”

Ursula thinks of the wide, fearful eyes, the readiness with which she approached them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and she isn’t sure who she’s saying it to.

“Urs…”

“I love you,” she says. “You told me to tell you, if something happened, so I did. I need to go now, I’m sorry.”

For a moment, she considers saying, _I want to spend the rest of my life in your arms, and I’m sorry we didn’t get that future._ But what torture would that be, to hand Hero a piece of her deepest dreams, a new guilt to add to all that she already carries on her shoulders.

Usula hangs up, and pulls her suitcase from under her bed. She needs to change, and pack, but she can book a ticket at the airport, and the buses run regularly to the airport.

Her phone buzzes insistently on her bed. Hero. Ursula declines the call.

A suitcase won’t work; her parents will notice if she sneaks out with it. She’ll have to use a smaller bag, then; pack only the essentials.

Her phone buzzes again. Ursula declines it and turns it off, slipping into her bag.

By the time she reaches the airport, she’s probably missed a million calls from Hero, and everyone else. They’re most likely all in a panic, worried about her, none of them knowing what she is. What a monster she is. _It’s better in the long run_ , she reminds herself harshly. Their momentary pain is a far better alternative to anything she might do.

Ursula buys her ticket and looks around the airport, filled with bustling families and tearful goodbyes. The last time she was in an airport, off to Melbourne for a short film project she’d won a part of, her parents and friends had been there to see her off, even though it was only for a couple of weeks. Hero had been there, grinning, congratulating her for the opportunity but sorry to see her go.

She’s alone, now, and that hurts more than it should. It’s necessary, Ursula reminds herself, joining the line for check-in. She still has a few hours for her flight, so she dawdles as she goes, half hoping someone will turn up.

No one will; no one even knows where she is. _This is the way it has to be_.

That fact doesn’t make it hurt any less.

-

_+1._

That’s the way it has to be. It’s what the stories say she should do, all the movies she’s ever watched about a monster who just never learned how to live with herself. That’s the way she needs to live.

“Ursula!”

Ursula turns around at the sound of her name, driven by instinct, and someone’s running toward her – golden hair glinting in the light, skirt billowing about her knees, oh god it’s _Hero_ , Hero’s here and she’s _coming for her_ – and she can feel the script rewriting itself, the story shifting into a new direction she hadn’t anticipated. Her mind goes a thousand miles a minute – _She can’t_ and _she is_ and _I’ll hurt her_ and _I already have_ and _god, I love her, I love her, I love her_ – and none of the things in her head makes sense, but all she knows, really, above all the noise, is _Hero is here._

“Hero,” she breathes.

Hero collides into her, her arms wrapping around her neck as if they were always meant to. “Ursula, oh my god, _Ursula_ , you beautiful idiot, what are you _doing_?” she says into her ear, half sobbing, and Ursula embraces her back – she shouldn’t, of course she shouldn’t, but everything is happening and nothing is making sense and how can she fight the instinct she was always born to follow? – and feels her heart tremble.

 _No_ , she thinks numbly, and places her hands on Hero’s shoulders, and pushes gently.

Hero stumbles backward, and there are tears glistening at the corners of her eyes, and heat prickles at the back of Ursula’s eyes and her throat tightens, and god, how is this happening, _how is this happening?_

“I have to,” Ursula chokes out. “I can’t do this anymore.” Her vision blurs.

Boldly, ignorant of the crowds swelling around them, Hero steps forward again and reaches out. Her hand fits on Ursula’s cheek perfectly, warm and sweet. She can’t stop Hero from doing it, can’t stop herself from leaning into it. It has been so long since she allowed herself the comfort of someone else’s touch.

“Ursula,” Hero says, and her voice is so soft Ursula can feel tiny pieces of her heart chipping away. “Ursula, you could _die_ out there. You could die on your own, and no one ever said you had to do it on your own.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Ursula manages to crack a weak smile, even as she feels her insides cracking apart.

“Ursula,” Hero whispers.                                                  

“Hero.”

“You don’t have to carry the world by yourself.” Hero lifts her chin up, and her teary eyes blaze like dying stars. “I’ll carry it with you.”

“ _How_?” Ursula manages to force the word past the lump in her throat.

Hero strokes her thumb across Ursula’s cheekbone, softly. It’s the barest of touches, but somehow, it calms something inside Ursula, something that snarls and tears; it makes the screams in her head turn to whispers.

“We’ll find a way.” Hero takes hold of Ursula’s palm with her free hand, and squeezes. “We’ll do the research – we’ll call the host of the radio show my brother listens to, we’ll find a way for you to control it, to stay conscious through the whole thing – we’ll do it together.”

“Hero – “

“People who were ignorant about magic took my life away for a bit. I’m not going to let them take you, too,” Hero says, fiercely, and in that moment, Ursula knows that Hero is here to fight for her, and Hero Duke never fights for causes she doesn’t believe in.

It warms Ursula’s heart and insides more than she could have thought, to be confronted face-to-face with the reality that Hero believes in her. That’s what she’s been missing this whole time – belief in herself.

“Will you come home, now?” Hero says, and her voice wobbles, and Ursula’s heart breaks just a little more. “Please?”

In a rush – every motion she has now, every word she says is driven by instinct, and she doesn’t even care – she surges forward and hugs Hero again, tightening her fists in the fabric of Hero’s shirt. She buries her face in the crook of Hero’s neck, and breathes.

“I love you,” Ursula says against Hero’s skin. “God, I love you.”

“Together,” Hero says back, and Ursula doesn’t think about the fact that they’re standing in the middle of a crowded airport and making a scene and hugging as if they hadn’t seen each other just yesterday, she doesn’t think about how good Hero smells and how good it feels to be held by her, she doesn’t think about anything but the fact that she will never be alone, no matter how hard she tries, and that’s okay. That’s what was meant to happen all along.


End file.
